


Warden's Oath

by ashtopop



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Bad Shit Happens, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 12:08:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5626054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashtopop/pseuds/ashtopop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She fell to her knees and tried to remember every god scattered through the history and legends her parents taught her. She prays to the elven gods and Dumat, the Maker and the Lady of the Skies. Because, God, she was running out of people to pray for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warden's Oath

Hawke broke her mother's rules so she could keep a promise to her father. Malcolm had whispered it into her hairline as they said their final goodbyes, before kissing her on the forehead like he'd done when she was a child.

Take care of them.

_I will._

She followed Carver to Ostagar when he insisted on enlisting. Bethany was safe for the time being—secured by bribery, seduction and blackmail by turns. She donned circle robes and befriended a grey warden on the hopes that if the worst came to pass he would enlist her to save her from tranquility. Or slit her throat. Anything but a blazing sun.

She said she was from Ansburg because it deters further questions, even though Ansburg was just another dot on a map to her.

The night before the battle she whispered the truth in the scarred warrior's arms.

She was scared. She was nineteen. She's an apostate. She's from Lothering and she'd never purposefully hurt anyone with her magic. Her baby brother was trying to get himself killed.

She thought she might be falling in love with him.

He ran his fingers through her hair and spoke treason. The King is a fool, he said, and his general blinded by hatred and fear. He told her of the coming Blight and what would happen if they didn't stop it at Ostagar. It would spread north. North to Lothering. North to mother and to Bethany.

He kissed her. He fucked her. They said goodbye.

She stole enough to run and she was ready when Loghain betrayed his King. She hauled Carver out of one fight and into the one for their home and lives. She spared one last glance for the man who saved her from her oath and ran as fast and as far as she could. To Kirkwall.

She tied a warden’s oath around her neck and tried to keep her own.

* * *

She dropped to her knees, bloodied and shaking. _Bethany_. Hawke rarely sang the Chant, but she’d heard it from outside strong wooden doors, waiting for Bethany to finish her prayers. She gripped Beth’s hand tight in her own and a tear slipped down her cheek as she whispered:

“The one who repents, who has faith

Unshaken by the darkness of the world,

She shall know true peace.” Her mother blamed her, she knew. She does, too.

* * *

She remembered what Ser Wesley looked like, before Aveline ended his misery. She knew, and she had agreed something had to be done. But then, with Carver... Ten more steps, she promised herself, then she'd ask him. Just around the corner of the hall. The next time she saw a nug. It worked until he fell.

His eyes were milky, blinking up at her in a confused, helpless daze. She was always supposed to stand between him and the blow, but she couldn't save him from that.

"I love you little brother," she said, ruffling his hair as the grey wardens took him from her. She smiled even though tears ran down the ceases of her face, until they rounded the next bend in the deep roads.

Then she fell to her knees and tried to remember every god scattered through the history and legends her parents taught her. She prayed to the elven gods and to Dumat, to the Maker and to the Lady of the Skies. Because, God, she was running out of people to pray for.

* * *

Offensive magic was her strong suit. Offensive  _anything,_  if you asked most people. Depending on where you asked, people might've told you she was a saint, a prostitute, a mercenary, a dog lord. She didn’t mind, so long as they didn’t say _mage._  And he loved to—tacked, sneering, at the end of a mocking sentence. Admittedly, it was better than abomination, but Anders probably deserved that one.

She’d done it accidentally at first—both the flirting and the blood magic. The blood magic when she put her hand down on a nail in the barn back in Lothering, the flirting when she brushed Fenris’ arm in between jokes. He’d flinched away from both.

When he left, she wasn't surprised. There was no red string of fate connecting them, just a ribbon wound around his wrist. It should have been less fragile, but it wasn’t.

* * *

The smell of lilies makes her want to vomit. Lillies are too close to decaying flesh and blood magic, foundry fumes and _mother_. Leandra left her wedding dress in Lothering. Hawke left Quentin’s lair in ashes, and her remorse somewhere in the sea between Gwaren and Kirkwall.

* * *

She didn't see the Warden when she passed through Lothering, but she remembers the whispers. Had she really threatened the Chantry into giving her keys to a prisoner’s cell, or just picked the lock? Had Loghain really quit the field and left his King to die, or had he made a tactful retreat, saving their armies for a definitive strike? Heroes rarely got to pick how their story was interpreted, and losers never did.

So maybe they’ll think her sacrifice in the Fade is the Inquisitor’s fault, and maybe it even was, but Hawke had _seen_ power without reign. Weisshaupt was secretive, power-hungry. Loghain had faults, but those two… maybe not anymore. Not since Amaranthine. Not since being stationed in Orlais. Not since the woman he sent to die came back and saved his country, not to mention his daughter. To her, he was forever the Hero of the River Dane—the man who could have been king _twice_ —and who knew the burden of power better than the absent Hero. The man who would hopefully feel indebted to her, and would take care of Carver—the last Hawke, would her mother have been proud?—in her absence.

They’ll never call Hawke a Hero. Well, maybe the mages will. No imagines a Hero corrupt, and no one wants to know how and when a Champion loses.

And Hawke lost everything.

**Author's Note:**

> so... on that happy note I'm considermehacked on tumblr


End file.
